“Roger that, Junebug. Better cover your ears.”
At first, she didn’t hear anything. A flickering orange light appeared behind the high roof of the armory, brightening the faces of the crowd. A minute later, she heard short disciplined bursts of rifle fire.
Then came a vast cracklingwhumpand a huge red-orange fireball rose into the night sky.
June turned and looked at the crowd. They stood in shocked stillness, staring at the towering flames. June waited, wondering what they would do. After a moment, debris began to fall from the sky. Burning wood, scorched pieces of sheet metal.
Then the crowd broke, people running in every direction.
June sprinted toward Peter, pistol in one hand and bolt cutters in the other.
58
Peter
When the singing started, Durant came to the stockade door with three other men. They all had nightsticks. Peter was more than ready to fight them. Even with his hands cuffed, if he could get a stick, he’d have a chance.
Durant must have seen it in his face. “You come easy, the females stay safe. You make it hard for us, I’ll give them to Vance.”
He let Durant take him.
People had already begun to gather on the grass. They saw him and sang louder.
Durant’s men hauled Peter to the plank wall, where the lawman took out a second pair of cuffs and clicked one end through a high ringbolt. “Raise his arms.”
Now Peter knew how this would go. He struggled against the fists clenched in the fabric of his coat, but the others kept their grip. “Hold him, for God’s sake,” Durant said, then wound up with the nightstick and swung at Peter’s head. He saw it coming and shifted and managedto take the blow on his raised shoulder. It felt like getting kicked by a mule. Durant raised the nightstick again. “You’re making it hard. Is that what you want for those females? Vance is one rough bastard.”
Fuck. Peter forced himself to allow the others to raise his arms. Durant closed the other cuff around the chain linking the shackles on his wrists, leaving Peter tethered like a goat.
A big Mercedes SUV pulled up the lane between the rows of cabins and the Messenger got out and walked through the crowd. He was standing in front of Peter when the singing stopped. He began to give a speech in the falling snow. Durant stood to the side and listened, head turning as he scanned faces, looking for signs of trouble.
There were plenty of guns in the crowd, Peter thought. If he could get free, he could at least do some damage before they killed him. And he wouldn’t be a fucking sacrifice for the new glorious age of mankind. So he pulled hard at his cuffs, feeling his wrists burn and blood flow as the metal cut into them. He wasn’t getting anywhere. The shackles were too tight and his hands were too big. He wondered how he might break his thumbs, and whether that would be enough to let him pull free. But then he’d have trouble firing a gun. He wondered where June and Manny and Lewis were. Whether they were all right.
In the crowd, people muttered and hefted their rocks. He felt his chest tighten. He closed his eyes and took a long breath in and pictured June on that beach. Tuning out the droning voice, he conjured up every detail he could remember. The summer sun, the lake lapping at the sand, her vivid green eyes filled with mischief. If he was going to die, he would die with a smile on his face.
Then, as the Messenger finished his rant, Peter heard the unmistakable sound of gunshots, maybe a hundred yards away.Pop. PopPopPop.PopPopPop. He opened his eyes. From behind him came the angry roar of a large explosion. A thick wave of pressure and heat washed over him, warming the planks at his back.
Then a chunk of burning wood fell to the ground between the Messenger and his flock. The crowd fell apart as people ran.
Most fled the fire, including the Messenger, with Durant beside him. A dozen or more men had rifles slung over their shoulders. They ran past Peter, headed for the explosion.
Then June was sprinting toward him, her face grim, a pair of bolt cutters in her hand.
He smiled. The cavalry was here.
—
She cut him down, then cut the chain between his cuffed wrists. He still wore the bracelets, but he could move freely. He wiped his blood-slick hands on his pants and scanned the frantically dispersing crowd. Nobody was paying any attention to them. “Did you get Carlotta and Ellie?”
A metallic thump carried from the stockade. “That’s Manny now.” She grabbed his coat and kissed him hard on the lips, then handed him her rifle and a spare magazine. She took her pistol from her pocket. “Where’s that shithead Messenger?”
Peter pointed toward the row of cabins. “He went that way.” As much as Peter wanted to collect those two assholes, now was not the time. “Hollis and Vance and six others drove off maybe twenty minutes ago. They had two big drones. They’re pulling the trigger. We have to go after them.”
“Well, we’re sure as hell not sticking around here.” June turned and jogged toward the stockade. Peter followed, scanning for threats ahead and behind, rifle raised, unlaced boots too tight on his feet.
He arrived to see Manny with a crowbar, levering out the badly dented metal door. Its knob and deadbolt lay battered and torn on the ground. Carlotta rushed out and wrapped her arms around Manny’s waist. Ellie emerged behind her, saw Peter, and ran toward him.
He hugged her tight. “Got you,” he said softly.
